Parneshia Jones is a recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award, the Margaret Walker Short Story Award; and the Aquarius Press Legacy Award. She is published in several anthologies including She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems, edited by Caroline Kennedy; The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, edited by Nikky Finney, as well as Poetry Speaks Who I Am, a book/CD compilation. Jones is a member of the Affrilachian Poets, a collective of Black voices from Appalachia and serves on the board of Cave Canem. She has performed her work all over the United States including the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City, the Art Institute in Chicago, and Vanderbilt University. Her poetry has been commissioned by Art for Humanity, in South Africa; Shorefront Legacy, and featured on Chicago Public Radio. Parneshia studied creative writing at Chicago State University, earned an MFA from Spalding University, and studied publishing at Yale University. She is completing her first collection of poetry, Waiting for Hurricanes, and currently holds positions as Sales and Subsidiary Rights Manager and Poetry Editor for Northwestern University Press.